1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to sales price and merchandise identification label holders in which cards are mounted bearing a written or printed price and/or an optically encoded price or merchandise identification code.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the past, various tag and label holders have been utilized to display unit or quantity prices and indentification codes of articles offered for sale in retail merchandise establishments. The label holders may be clipped onto the edges of display shelves bearing merchandise, they may be hung by mounting brackets from mounting rails or they may be carried in cantilever fashion at the ends of mounting rods projecting outward from a support. The latter arrangement is frequently used in conjunction with cantilevered merchandise hangers, secured at their bases to associated cantilevered price tag holder mounting bars and fastened to peg boards or other vertical supports. The cantilevered tag holder mounting arrangement is particularly useful where the prices displayed are printed on cards mounted in the holders and appear not only in arabic numerals and alphabet characters, but also in optically encoded form. Indeed, in some instances the label contains only the optically encoded unit or quantity price or an optically encoded stock number or other merchandise indentification. This facilitates the accurate maintenance of inventory since the merchandise stock number and/or price can be recorded with an optical sensor wand that is directed at the optically encoded label and swept thereacross. This eliminates the time consuming process of manually recording stock numbers and their associated inventory counts. When an optical encoding inventory control system is employed, the wand is merely swept across the encoded merchandise identification indicia and a numerical inventory count is entered through a keyboard or other electronic input device. By mounting the labels in cantilever fashion, access to the label holder is facilitated and the time required to take inventory is shortened.
Heretofore merchandise display label holders have typically been provided in a single fixed size. This size may be large enough to accommodate the largest size display labels that are likely to be provided. When the label holders are so large, however, they are inappropriate for use with labels of significantly smaller size. Since price and merchandise identification tags are provided in a variety of lengths, the affixation of a short tag to a long label holder presents both an unsightly appearance and a visual hinderance. Inordinately long label holders impair the visibility of proximately located merchandise and prevent close packing of materials in a display. On the other hand, if the label holders provided are too short for the price or merchandise identification tag, the overhanging ends of the tag are subject to rapid deterioration, since they are invariably bent and soiled as people brush them aside to gain access to the merchandise displayed.
In other types of conventional price and merchandise identification display systems, tags may be monted on a flexible backing which can be cut to length. This requires a separate cutting instrument, however, and in any event is unsuitable when the tags are to be displayed on holders in cantilevered fashion. Rather, the use of flexible holders is appropriate only where the holder is to be directly mounted on a firm backing support, such as the edge of a merchandise display shelf.